By Betty DeFazio
Planned Parenthood
Recently, anti-choice House leadership forced a vote on the most dangerous legislative assault on women’s health in Planned Parenthood’s 95-year history.

That’s not an exaggeration; it is a simple fact.

Title X, our nation’s family planning program, provides funding for birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing and other lifesaving care. The ideologically-driven House leadership voted to completely eliminate this crucial funding — particularly for Planned Parenthood. If enacted, this would cut off millions of women from care they have no other way to afford.

This attack on family planning funding is not an isolated incident. It’s part of a coordinated campaign meant to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers and deny women access to basic health care. Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle blatantly lies in her statement saying “Planned Parenthood was not attacked.”

For her to deny this is, at best, disingenuous. She knows the truth because she co-sponsored the two pieces of legislation proposed by her colleagues, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., that specifically targeted organizations that provide abortion, knowing fully that meant Planned Parenthood. It is true that in the final bill passed by the House, many cuts were included.

Further, for her to imply that Planned Parenthood is not a health care provider, as she did recently at a meeting with her constituents in Syracuse, reveals how out of touch she is with the women in our community who rely on Planned Parenthood for their only health care.

The new House leadership campaigned on a promise to focus on jobs and the economy. Now that they’re in power, they are instead focused on relentlessly attacking Planned Parenthood and the women, men and teens who rely on us. They’ve shown where their priorities lie: destroying Planned Parenthood and eliminating access to reproductive health care — even at the cost of denying women medical services that could save their lives.

To be clear, this battle is about access to affordable birth control and economically smart ways to prevent unintended pregnancies.

Republican President Richard Nixon understood this common sense concept and on July 18, 1969, he pledged his commitment in a message to Congress, stating: “It is my view that no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition. I believe, therefore, that we should establish, as a national goal, the provision of adequate family planning services within the next five years to all those who want them but cannot afford them.”

Congress responded to the president’s call, enacting Title X of the Public Health Service Act, the first and only federal program dedicated to providing family planning services nationwide.

I encourage you to stand with Planned Parenthood. Stand up for the 3 million women who rely on Planned Parenthood for lifesaving services each year. We need everyone who cares about women’s health to join together to oppose this attack on Planned Parenthood and those we serve.

Please call Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer and tell them to reject this extreme approach, restore common sense, and guarantee that Planned Parenthood and the millions of Americans who count on us for health care are protected.

Betty DeFazio is the director of community affairs and public policy for Planned Parenthood of the Rochester/Syracuse Region.